Sinofiled

Moving On

2009-02-05T22:22:00.002+08:00

Sinofiled is going to lie fallow for a while. It seems I already started neglecting it quite a long time ago. It was a good way to keep in touch with friends and family but the story of me in China is changing. I've started a new blog called "Teaching-student" where I hope to write about being an EFL teacher in China in more detail and also write about the Chinese course I'll be stating in a few weeks.

teaching-student.blogspot.com

Nixon in China

2009-01-21T10:12:00.002+08:00

Every week I teach a class on "culture." The subject matter is under my complete discretion. In honor of the inauguration and the upcoming Presidents' Day, I decided to talk about US Presidents. But I'm a pretty cynical idealist, so I started with Richard Milhous Nixon.

David had recently downloaded the film version of Frost/Nixon, which is surprisingly watchable so I designed the class around a few clips from that. Luckily, as he was the first President to visit the PRC, my students have actually heard of him. At the end of the film, one of the characters said that Nixon's most lasting legacy was that any political scandal immediately gets the suffix -gate.* Of course no one told me until after class that his legacy is even more widespread than that. Political scandals in China gets the suffix -men now. (men is the Chinese word which means "gate")

*I'm not sure about that, I might not be able to live here so easily if not for ol' Tricky Dick

Surprisingly Tasteful (for China)

2008-12-17T10:04:00.002+08:00

A restaurant near my apartment has decided to decorate for the holidays.

Suzhou Calm Garden

2008-12-08T11:08:00.003+08:00

I visited one of Suzhou's gardens on Friday and found what I can only assume is a Chinese cock fighting ring. The evidence:

A Very Special Sinofiled

2008-11-04T21:53:00.002+08:00

Not that it has anything to do with my life in China BUT... let's do ourselves a favor and vote Obama/Biden today. It is no fun to travel around the world and say: "Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy."

Secret Ingredients

2008-11-04T10:58:00.002+08:00

Yesterday I went to one of the many la mian (pulled noodles) restaurants for lunch. I ordered two dishes because I was pretty hungry. One came with a bug in it. Forgetting the word for insect, I settled for squealing and pointing. The fourteen year old boy who was running the place took the plate away and consulted with his dad. After a minute of debate about the dish, he took it back to the kitchen. A few minutes later, the boy came back with my food again. The bug was still in it. I pointed and squealed again. The boy looked at the bug as if he was seeing it for the first time, which could have been what actually happened. He picked it out with his fingers. I got up and left, shaking my head with disappointment. Not because he hadn't noticed that it was the bug I had a problem with the first time, but because I can't go back to the only cheap lunch place near my office. I got on my bicycle, hoping that no one would chase me with a plate full of fried rice. I cycled a few blocks and payed twice as much money for a turkey sandwich from a western food store. They put tomatoes on it. I hate tomatoes.

More medicine

2008-10-10T11:40:00.004+08:00

Most of the plants matter seemed to have been dried out on the street before being bagged for sale. I am not sure what the purpose of dirt is in TCM.

Lizards are apparently more effective at treating asthma without their guts.

Dried scorpions relieve convulsions and pain, especially from chronic migraines.

For decorating beach houses.

All in all, it doesn't seen like a bad job, certainly less stressful than teaching.

Shots of Medicine

2008-10-10T11:32:00.003+08:00

Turtle shells, for treating low-grade fever and night sweats.

Not sure what the dried snake is for, the scare cure for hiccups?

Worst. Taxidermy. Ever. Advertising slices and pieces of its cousins inside.

I've said before that the whole town smells absolutely lovely. Dried flowers like these are probably to thank for that. With so many dried animals and animal parts around, things could have so easily gone the other way.

For curing ugly necks.

Bozhou Traditional Chinese Medicine Market

2008-10-10T11:25:00.004+08:00

This is the square in front of the main market building. It is only open in the mornings but the already enormous building is surrounded by a small town of TCM wholesalers.

This is a statue of Hua Tuo, a native son of Bozhou who practiced medicine around 200 CE. He was performing surgery using anesthetics while my ancestors were running around Europe in loincloths. These gentlemen are waiting for the market building to open.

Bozhou

2008-10-06T13:55:00.002+08:00

There are some things that are easier for ex-pats to do in China than in their home countries, like cigarette smoking and dating someone far younger/more attractive than themselves.* One thing that isn't easier is going on vacation during a national holiday. Last week, David and I wound up going to our third choice: Bozhou in northwestern Anhui. It is an ancient city that is all but unknown to most Chinese people.

I remarked in my journal that Bozhou is just like a poor city in the United States, every business seems to be selling cigarettes and booze. Add a few more places selling lottery tickets and it could be the Bronx. That comment was at least a little premature because it turns out the area is a major producer of Chinese liquor. Baijiu, a hard liquor made from sorghum usually, is often mistranslated as white wine. There is nothing wine-like about it, however. It tastes like gasoline and goes down like battery acid. I'm digressing from talking about Bozhou to the familiar ex-pat rant against the vileness of baijiu.

Most of the so-called places of interest in China are keen to gild the lily, e.g., light up trees in green lights after dark, use bits of classic architecture to house tourist shops, and offer pleasure cruises in boats made of injection molded plastic that is somehow supposed to resemble ancient Chinese water transportaion. Bozhou doesn't do any of this, mostly because they cannot afford to. Bozhou is a poor city in a poor province. And somehow, the less-than-three-days I spent there comprised one of the best trips I have taken in China in my 13 months here. I'm not trying to sell anyone a “poor but happy” bridge in Brooklyn. Most of the citizens of Bozhou would probably give their eye teeth for some of the economic boom happening in the next province over.

Bozhou gets a mention in the guide books for having either the largest traditional medicine (TCM) market in China, the largest in Asia, or one of the four largest in China. None of the foreigners writing about Bozhou seem to be able to agree. Before we left, I made the mistake of asking an advanced student whether or not he believed in Chinese medicine. His answer, had he been a native speaker of English, would have been something like, “I'm sorry, what is your question?” It was the equivalent of asking a paleontologist if he believed in dinosaurs. From a cursory review of the literature, it seems like TCM is best at picking up biomedicine's slack. It relieves chronic ailments and diseases with vague pathologies when biomedicine throws up its hands. The other advantage that TCM has is price. It doesn't seem like coincidence that this market is located in the poorest province of eastern China. I have it on good authority that the aphrodisiacs are on the expensive side, but I don't believe that anyone has ever died from a mediocre sex life.

I knew I would have a hard time writing about Bozhou, because there isn't a story to tell. If I wanted to write a step by step account of what I did there, things would get very boring, very fast. If I wanted to tell a story about my time there, sooner or later I would have to stop writing about Bozhou and start writing about what I wanted to say about it. We were there for less than 3 full days. It would be dishonest for me to try and say anything substantial. All I know is what I saw during one small moment in time, the night of September 30 to the morning of October 2. During those few days though, the streets were dusty and the air had a faintly pleasant smell. It was the oddest thing actually, because we are so used to following our noses somewhere, to the source of that good smell, and it was just all around us. Sometimes the air smelled more like anise seed at other times, more like dried flowers. All I really know for sure about Bozhou, that I didn't learn from a guidebook or the internet or my TCM manual, was that for least 3 days of the last 2000 years, it smelled really nice there.

*both worst best if you happen to be a man as well.

Interrupting our regularly scheduled broadcast

2008-10-06T13:51:00.002+08:00

I'm holding off on the last in my series on all the everyday bits of my life in China to write about the trip I took last week during the national holiday. We had 5 days off for the October 1 National Day. We took that time to head over to Bozhou in neighboring Anhui province.

Toilet Paper, not just for the roll anymore

2008-10-03T15:36:00.003+08:00

Another ho-hum part of my life that is nevertheless unique to my being in China is that fact that toilet paper has become a regular fixture in my purse. BYOB meet BYOTP.

Teaching or The Emperor's New Clothes

2008-09-26T15:52:00.003+08:00

The other night I had to teach a class on culture. And while normally I would rather teach a class on yogurt culture than a class on "Western" culture, I have sort have been getting into it lately. Since most Chinese students like culture that comes in small pieces and is easily digested, my stroke of brilliance was to introduce them to Western fairy tales. Rather than tread the awkard waters of the Grimm brothers and their tales of pre-modern European sexual mores (I took a class in college, Walt Disney had no idea...), I decided to make my own abridged version of "The Emperor's New Clothes" by Hans Christian Andersen.

Within five minutes of handing out the story, I learned that every primary school student in China reads a translation of it. Most of the students are pretty good sports about putting up with the Socratic method in EFL class (it's the only way that I know how to teach) but they all seemed to think that there wasn't anything that they could get out of the story by reading it again, and in English, except for maybe a few vocabulary words. As far as they were concerned, they had learned the point of the story 18+ years ago and there wasn't else to say about it besides "Don't lie because the truth always comes out." I wasn't so much annoyed that the students had all been taught something about the story that missed the forest for the trees, I was anoyed that 17 adults were not at all interested in a fresh perspective. Maybe what I think is a story about pride and the ridiculous theatrics of people in power isn't true at all. But I don't think that a story about telling the truth or ELSE! would turn into an important cultural reference for discussions of politics, feminisn, biology, to name a few things that come up in a simple Google search. When was the last time you read anything interesting that referenced the boy who cried wolf? Yet another instance of the Chinese educational system letting me down.

Commuting Continued

2008-09-26T10:46:00.003+08:00

Commuting

2008-09-26T10:25:00.003+08:00

For the first time in 13 years, I got a bicycle for my birthday. So instead of being awkwardly crammed into a city bus that was somehow constructed without shocks, AND air conditioning, I get to cycle to work. I said that I wanted to talk about all the little mundane aspects of life herem and I am pretty sure it doesn't get more ho hum than commuting. In a less than cautious move, I took my camera out on my 35 minute ride to work and snapped a few photos of what I see everyday on my bicycle. The photos show, I hope the visual transition from the old China of streets built before cars, and the modern office parks vying for foreign investment. Look for a well, my favorite neighbor, an accident waiting to happen and the harbinger of the end times.

Food

2008-09-18T11:45:00.003+08:00

Here are some of my options for grabbing a bite to eat near my house. There are dumplings (obvs) and crepes. The crepe store has little plastic models of the menu options so I know I am still in Asia.

Priotities

2008-09-12T11:46:00.003+08:00

Wednesday was Teachers' Day in China. I got a few messages from former students, best wishes from current ones, and this card:

If only Bob realized I was in the wrong line of work for that.

Nothing to see here

2008-09-09T13:43:00.002+08:00

It has been about a month since I returned to China. I have a new job and am living in a new city. And so far I have nothing to say about them. Part of the reason everything seems so dull is that I've gotten used to all the things that used to make my life exciting. In order to continue posting things on this blog, which has turned out to be a lovely way to keep in touch with friends and family, I am giving myself a little project. I've written a lot about my travels and misadventures so now I think it is time to explore the banal. There will be... let's say five, new posts in the coming weeks about all the little everyday things that make up my ex-pat life in China. First up, feeding one's self.

One year of solitude

2008-08-18T20:02:00.001+08:00

Living in China opened up a great many opportunities to me. By being here, I've been able to eat dog, fail miserably at learning a foreign language, misrepresent America, and live alone. I really just needed to get out of New York to achieve that last item on the list. And while I can't seem to shut up about the culinary delights of China and my native politics, living alone for the first time was an incredibly valuable experience. Besides the financial freedom that an apartment your school pays for provides, I think that China is an ideal place to test the waters of solitude.

One of the psychological difficulties of living alone is the fact that everything is your fault. Stove left on? Your forgot. Tabletop a mess? You are the slob. Toilet not flushed? Oops. China, however, provides a scapegoat: the secret police. At my last job my school said that the secret police would search my apartment twice a semester. (Wasn't it sweet of them to inform me?). Theoretically, I only got to blame them twice for my inability to find small household items, but it sure did help to know that I wasn't going insane. People really were out to get me, or at least make sure I didn't have too many Bibles laying around.

I didn't always cart home dumplings by the crate or skip merrily along to the noodle shop. When I first came to China food was quite the challenge. The produce was unrecognizable, cooking instructions incomprehensible and I could not string enough words together to order a bowl of rice. Thanks to living alone though, no one knew! I could stand in my kitchen eating my dinner of instant noodles, fried egg and a stick of gum and no one was there to mock my helplessness. If I had had a roommate, I probably would have caved and eaten her dumplings. And blamed it on the secret police.

Saturday night in New York City brings with it myriad possibilities. A person can go to a Spanish wine bar, see an independent film, listen to a band that almost no one has heard of and fewer people actually like, listen to stand-up comedy, do stand-up comedy, eat a barbecue chicken pizza... There are so many things to do that half the time I just wanted to stay home with Netflix and a pitcher of sangria. Unfortunately, the high-cost-of-living imposed roommates made me feel a bit lame doing this. Also, sangria takes like a day to make and I just don't have those kind of planning skills. In contrast, there are only a couple of things for a young foreign girl to do on a Saturday night in China. Those things are all slightly sad little bars that cater to the ex-pat crowd. I may have chosen to stay home and paint my toenails a few nights instead of making stilted conversation over weak beer. But that was my secret.

Everyone should live alone at least once. The secret is that you're really not alone: you are with yourself. And if that person drives you bonkers, maybe it is time to make some changes, before you drive other people bonkers too. So thanks China. Thanks for your low cost of living that has allowed me to live with a clumsy, forgetful, yet somewhat charming individual. I promise to do the dishes more often.

Sip on this

2008-08-18T19:10:00.002+08:00

When I first came to the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park I called it “Sip” instead of using the abbreviation “SIP” like the other foreigners. I thought it was funny to call this sterile and cold place something that sounded a bit twee. My idea did not catch on. The place essentially looks like Jane Jacob's worst nightmare. Like much of New York, SIP is built on a grid. Unlike New York, most of these streets are wide boulevards that are impossible to cross within the span of a green light. With the sun somehow beating down through the haze, and a lack of tree cover, the area is miserable to walk around in. I get to work here five days a week. In a taxi driving through the seemingly endless factories and apartment complexes, my boss Kevin remarked to me that “SIP does not look like China.” It certainly does not look like the China I was looking for, but I wanted to know his reasoning. “There are no people here,” he said. SIP has certainly achieved something that no where else in China has: it makes me miss the crowds.

Back in the Mainland groove

2008-08-12T15:32:00.002+08:00

It has been almost two months since I last posted. Since June 19 I've moved to a new city (Suzhou), started a new job, had my little sister come visit and gone back to the States for 3 weeks. Forgive me for not sharing all these events with the world as they were happening

Right now I am pretty pleased to be back in China where the weather is awful, the people are great and the food is even better. I will stay this happy as long as no one mentions that little sporting event in the capital ever again.

Red Herrings

2008-06-19T08:35:00.002+08:00

This is my last week at my school before I start my next teaching position. I've spent the last two weeks grading exams and helping the latest round of students to try to study abroad. With sadness and relief I read the essays penned by my students for their exams. I've felt a little defeated ever since I realized that the senior middle school system in China (like American high school) has driven me to the cool embrace of business English education. Reading those essays created a whole new feeling of defeat for me, however. The students had to write 250-300 words stating their position on whether computers were a help or a hindrance in our society. More than 80% of the students wrote that the internet is full of lies and bad information.

I asked another student of mine (not in the class) on a hunch, where these ideas came from. She told me that the most popular news program in China regularly tells its viewers not to trust the internet, lest they stumble upon any information about China that is actually true. It is still possible that the students were writing on their exams what they have been told and not what they believe. The fact that that message is so thoroughly propagated is truly disturbing, regardless of whether it is believed.

The internet is really good at wasting our time. It also allows me to stay in touch with my friends and family and teach English on a daily basis. There is a lot of "bad information" out there. Some of it is "bad" because it is true, and some of it is bad because it isn't. It is hard to teach people to be critical and analytical, but life is far better when they are.

There is not much I can do about what I see here, except offer my perspective and hope not to be deported. But if I can be a dopey teacher for a second on my internet soap box, I would like to ask my American readers (both of you!) for a favor. Every time you hear about a "terrorist sympathizing", "black separatist", "un-American" presidential hopeful, put your thinking cap on!

If John McCain is elected, I might not repatriate for at least another 4 years.

Clear your calendars

2008-06-04T23:50:00.003+08:00

I'm landing at JFK on July 19. I will probably be very tired and cranky, but that is not any different from how I normally am, so feel free to stop by and tell me how much you've missed me. Or we can just go get a beer and a slice.

I only have 3 weeks in the States this summer and I want to see as many of my friends and family as possible.

The Scariest Game

2008-06-02T13:35:00.005+08:00

The sight of little Chinese children with their butts hanging out of their crotch split pants (they pee on the street rather than in diapers), or little girls with more hair accessories on their heads than I have in my entire house gives me a pang on the inside that says: "I want that." Then I realize that little kids grow into big kids. If I have learned anything this year, it is that big kids drive me batshit crazy.

But when my friend Bradi invited me to the Children's Day celebration at the kindergarten she works at a couple days a week, I was all over it. They sang, they danced. I played favorites and tried scoping out the single dads. Towards the end they played this terrible game that reminded me that I am no where near the litigious land I call home. Take a look:

During the next round, a woman fell flat on her face with her daughter on her back. Other classes in the school were still playing as she bled from her mouth.

The only guy in China outnumbered by chicks

2008-06-02T13:27:00.001+08:00

How to barely learn Chinese while sort of trying

2008-05-27T23:52:00.004+08:00

According to Rammy, my Chinese tutor, this is about second-grade level Chinese handwriting. Not bad for a 22 year old American with questionable diligence.

China is the best place to learn Chinese. This is one of those statements that is both true and false. Let me explain. China would be the best place for learning Chinese, if I had a Chinese face instead of the one I have, which invites people to speak English to it like the Pied Piper of ESL. (You would think about stealing children too if you say how cute some of these babies are) Maybe it would be better if I were dating a Chinese guy.* Then I would have a bit more impetus to hit the books and study more. A foreign woman dating a Chinese man, however, is about as rare and an older foreign man with an age appropriate girlfriend. Not unheard of, but rare. Most of my friends and coworkers just want to practice their English with me. I don't hold it against them because I am lazy. Even shop assistants and waitresses proudly announce that I owe "Twenty-four yuan" while I am screaming on the inside that the numbers are something I knoooooooow!

So when do I get to practice the little Chinese I have managed to learn? Taxis. Those drivers are always curious about me and they don't speak a word of English. I don't know what I will do when I move to Suzhou and my budget forces me to take the bus.

*True story: "Can I have your phone number?" is a popular first sentence for many Western men in China.

Full length mirrors needed

2008-05-26T22:56:00.003+08:00

I know that I have griped enough about the Chinese habit of wearing socks with sandals enough in the past, but seeing this look on a fellow foreigner just about killed me. I hope she got paid in euros to model this look.

My Fair Lady Redux

2008-05-26T22:42:00.005+08:00

Here is a cute video of some of my students performing a scene from Pygmalion/My Fair Lady. The acting is a little wooden and they forgot their lines repeatedly, but the kids got pretty into it. They figured out they could make it funny by having a boy play and girl part and vice versa.

Beyond the Pale

2008-05-14T23:39:00.006+08:00

For the past week and a half my senior 2 class (grade 11 in the American system) has been watching My Fair Lady and practicing a scene from the original George Bernard Shaw play. Before we got into all of this, we talked about the title of the musical/film. George called his play Pygmalion, which I guess was too inaccessible for a musical. Whether or not it is the most effective way to teach the intricacies of the English language, I tend to use the Socratic method when I teach. Eventually I teased out of the students that "fair" means both to treat people the same no matter what, and to be beautiful—useful information for understanding the meaning of the film. I briefly explained that in modern usage the word "fair" is usually used to mean someone is light-skinned, not beautiful. In a place where skin-whiteners take up a lot of space in supermarket shelves, I did not spend too much time on the issue. Clearly there is a connection between paleness and beauty in both of our cultures and there is nothing that I can do about it.

In some ways, skin whiteners are like the anti-wrinkle creams of Asia. They are beauty products of dubious effectiveness that supposedly fix problems that are social constructs anyway. I don't know what disturbs me more, the fact that these products exist and they promote the idea that whiter is better, or that they are mostly made by companies that I am used to seeing back at home on the shelves of CVS and Duane Reade: Olay, Estee Lauder, Johnson and Johnson... Are they taking advantage of market demand or is something more insidious at work here? People prized pale skin before "Clear Whiteness Cleanser" came on the market in China. The roots of this idea are probably the same all over the world, pale people (once upon a time in some cases, currently in others) were pale because they were not out in the sun all day working the fields with the rest of the peasants. And what of the white people now who will take a bath in coffee grounds in order to look tan? Same principle, only the rich and fabulous have the time and resources to sit around and absorb UV rays or pay people to spray on some fake ones. Not that I want to dignify her with a mention on my blog, but Ms. Paris Hilton is a prime example. It also makes us look thinner, which also gets back to the rich and fabulous thing.

So what do I care what Chinese people think and do about the colors of their skin? I don't know, I'm just a little white girl. Maybe it is none of my business. Maybe it is my "white guilt" taking over. Maybe the Chinese can figure it out, I hear the Asians are supposed to be smarter...

I'm OK

2008-05-14T10:48:00.002+08:00

Thanks to everyone who called/emailed to ask after my safety in the wake of the Sichuan disaster. I survived the the largest earthquake to hit China in decades... by being no where near it.

Interestingly, my friend who is the most vociferous opponent of the Chinese government I know, sent me a message saying that we should do something to show our support to China and its people in the aftermath. I have no idea what he has in mind.

But they are pretty cute...

2008-05-12T18:51:00.003+08:00

This kid is a future heart-breaker. Note the Olympics plug on the blackboard.

Q: How is teaching high school like mountaineering?

2008-05-12T18:39:00.003+08:00

A: Both are too damn hard for the likes of me.

About a decade after it was on the best-seller lists, I finally got around to reading Into Thin Air. Not the coziest read, but nevertheless a pretty well-written account of a particularly disastrous climbing season on Mount Everest I knew before I cracked open the book, that many of the people involved would not be alive by the last page, but I still had trouble getting past page 78. On that page in the soft-cover version, the author, Jon Krakauer, writes about how some of his teammates sheepishly revealed at base camp that their boots were new and not exactly broken in. Now usually, my butt does not get up a mountain without four tires and an engine*, but even I wouldn't try climbing so much as a Stairmaster with new shoes. I don't want to blame the victims here, especially since many people died on Everest that year, most of them with adequate footwear, and it also takes a convergence of many factors to cause such a disaster. I still have to wonder what motivates people who have ordinary (i.e. sedentary jobs) and who train at the gym and not the nearest glacier, to pay tens of thousands of dollars to have a guide (maybe) take them to the summit of Mount Everest. So there I was looking at pages 78 and 79 and thinking about how inflated people's senses of their own abilities must be to attempt to summit Mount Everest with such an obvious lack of preparation. If I trained for a marathon for a year in the Himalayas I wouldn't attempt at 23 to do what these people who were mostly in their 40s did.**

My own moral superiority was a little over-inflated too. I too, had hopped on a plane to fly to the other side of the world from where I lived and attempted something very difficult that I had little relevant experience for. I'm referring to my job as an English teacher. Back in New York, I had volunteered in a couple different ESL classrooms run by non-profits. I certainly would not have pursued teaching in China if I hadn't found these experiences rewarding and enjoyable (and something that I could do). Working as a volunteer in an ESL class in New York City as a prelude to being a full-time classroom teacher in China was like going on a few day hikes before trying to summit a mountain. Teaching in a foreign country is not life or death like climbing Mount Everest, but it too took a lot of hubris on my part. I clearly stated on more than one occasion that I wasn't that worried about the teaching part of my stint in China. Now that my “stint” has become something more than that, it is time to sit back and evaluate.

At this point you should know that I can't spell the word “guarantee” to a degree that even the t9 function on my cell phone can figure it out, and I have to look up the differences between the past tenses every single time. It takes a lot of arrogance to a country you've never been to teach something that you take for granted (this certainly doesn't apply to every foreign teacher in China). Apparently I had this arrogance in spades, because that is exactly what I did.

I have 3 weeks of teaching left before I begin giving final exams. Most of my teaching is behind me, and it was probably mediocre at best. The student who hated me the most and the student who liked me both did so for the same reason: my American passport. In the end, I think that I realized my erroneous preconceptions faster than I realized that my students had their own preconceptions about me which were much more influential on our dynamic. So in addition to dog, I've eaten crow too. Teaching Chinese high school is hard, too hard for me to try again. Hooray for adult education.

*For more proof of my aversion to exercise, see the Flashback Episode, final scene.

**Totally ageist, I know.

Care for what?

2008-05-08T00:20:00.003+08:00

The other day, in true Chinese style, I met up with some friends at a tea-house. I learned a few things that night. For example, I can now say in Chinese, that I don't want to be employed as the girlfriend of a Shanghainese former film director. (Don't worry mom, I am not actually friends with this person). I also chatted for a bit with an acquaintance named Ted*. Ted is about the same size as a jockey, but his pants could be worn by a basketball player. He is one of the few Chinese people who can speak with a fairly distinct British accent. I love Ted. Here is why:

[I enter the room in the tea house where I am to meet my friends]
My dear friend Bradi: [skips the hello] Do you know Ted went to jail?
Me: [to Ted, raising my eyebrow at the man whose body is partially consumed by the big leather couch] What did you go to jail for?
Ted: Democray.
Me: [thinking about the last time I believed in anything enough to go to jail for it] When was this?
Ted: The late '80s, you know Tiananmen Square?
Me: Holy shit Ted.

On May 1, 2008, the Chinese broke a record. They became the first people to protest for the government.* In response to some rubbish about France and the Olympics, with some anti-Dalai Lama rhetoric thrown in for good measure, the Chinese (sort of) boycotted the French supermarket chain Carrefour. By all accounts the boycott was pretty lackluster. May 1 is a national holiday here so people were pre-disposed to want to go shopping, and the Carrefour management got wind of the plan and responded by cutting their prices in half. Chinese nationalism is only outweighed by Chinese parsimony. The whole thing sounded pretty stupid to me, so I made a point of going over there and buying something imported.

The contrast between the activism of Ted's day and what I saw on May 1 is pretty amazing. I wanted to post something about my chat with Ted ever since it happened, but I honestly felt that I had to make a decision about whether to talk about this little anecdote on the internet. The decision I came to eventually is clear, and it occurred at the time that I had to make a few other decisions. The biggest one was whether I should stay entrenched in a city like where I am now, where most of my friends are Chinese and I can't buy parmesean cheese at the grocery store. The amount I have learned from hanging out with my friends, colleagues, students, and teachers is just enormous. I have scratched a little bit away from the mystery concerning the everyday life of an average Chinese person, which is what I really set out to learn about in the first place.* Ultimately , this is why I decided to leave. Ted's story has the sparkle of fame (or infamy) to it, but I wouldn't put it above anything else that has managed to shock or move me while I have been here. There has been plenty of both. I am too careless and naïve to be blabbing about other people's lives on the internet. That is why I am moving further down the Yangtze this summer for my next job to be with all the other foreigners, buying myriad varieties of cheese and learning Chinese within the sanitary confines of an accredited university. I am also in love with a British guy named David who wouldn't mind if I were around more, but you are only allowed to hear about that if you used to share a loft with me in Brooklyn or your last name is a permutation of the letters F-I-L-E-D.

Shamelessness in 5,4,3,2,1... If you hear of any EFL jobs in the Shanghai-Suzhou area, let me know!

*not even his real English name
*Bradi-lady
* I feel like a bit of a bastard admitting this, but teaching English was sort of a secondary concern.

In case the machinations of my brain needed further explanation...

2008-05-05T23:30:00.002+08:00

http://jezebel.com/386682/from-the-mixed+up-files-of-mrs-basil-e-frankweiler-city-of-angels

Hongcun and Xidi

2008-04-25T00:47:00.011+08:00

Memorial arch in Xidi. It has that ornate and imposing look going on.

Hongcun and Xidi are two villages in the Huizhou district of southern Anhui province. They are little water villages with white stucco buildings and black tile roofs set against the mountains. Gorgeous stuff. The fact that they are overrun with tourists (like everywhere else in China worth visiting) is tempered by the fact that they are also overrun by art students painting and sketching the scenery.
The Chinese were all quite impressed by the clearness of the water in Hongcun.

The old Qing and Ming houses are known for their wood carvings.

It cost me 2 kuai (28 cents) to go upstairs so I could take this photo. Once I was the up there I realized why it wasn't part of the tour. I'll be surprised if that house is still standing next week.

My name is Mary, and I am a Tourist

2008-04-25T00:33:00.004+08:00

(sometimes I teach English too, when I feel like it)

This winter, a minor internet dust-up caught my attention. Across the pond from my hometown, The Guardian's * website gave a blog to a young kid on his way over to Thailand and India for two months. The 19 year old (or was it 18? anyway, young) wrote his opening post and was so eviscerated by our snarky British friends in the commentator sphere that The Guardian was shamed into canceling the blog. The blogger happened to be the son of one of the paper's travel writers, and his one and only post was pretty grating. Even though he got a chance to write for a real periodical at an age when I was dealing with roommates who were ethically opposed to using RAID on our roaches, I'm happy that he had his moment. I had a grand old time reading those scathing comments. I may have even been inspired by the witty criticism of shameless nepotism to add a few superfluous letters to my spelling and use some alternative vocabulary. So the reason I bring this lad up is because one of those rightfully annoyed commentators pointed out the fact that this wasn't some meandering travel or long journey about to commence, but a two-month long holiday. And considering what we know about India and Thailand, the kid was probably going to be too stoned to write anything worth reading anyway.

So that comment about a two month trip the Indian subcontinent and beyond sort of struck me as long overdue. I spent several years in New York busy hating tourists during my free time. For me it wasn't politics, fashion, or BMI that was irritating about the tourists, it was logistics. Tourists move too slowly; they don't know where they are going. The tourist presence in New York is nothing compared to tourism at the scenic spots and famous places in China. I recently got back from a few days in southern Anhui and even after getting stared at by old men on a tour bus and seeing the most ridiculous tat** for sale I have to say, “what the hell is wrong with being a tourist?” What I really mean is, why can't every one up-man obsessed person with a backpack stop lying to herself and just admit that she is just a tourist with a big itinerary and a small budget? I've seen quite a few foreigners traveling around China and most of them annoy the crap out of me. Stop equating using a certain type of luggage with being an explorer of yore. The whole idea behind “backpacking” is actually sort of fraught with Orientalism anyway. No matter when your last shower was, you are still following the signs to the W.C. just like everybody else.

So I, Mary, flaut the vocabulary of my peers and proudly proclaim myself to be a tourist. I like to go to interesting places and see pretty things. Sometimes I consult guidebooks, I buy a map when I can, I don't wear a visor, but when I am old, I probably will. If this makes me a loser, I don't care. I saw some cool stuff in Huizhou, Anhui and you didn't.

*staunchly guarding journalistic integrity six days a week, merely observing on Sundays
**thanks again, U.K. (ok... DPH)

Beijing 200hate

2008-04-14T13:17:00.003+08:00

Ah, the Olympics, international sporting event and interrupter of my regularly scheduled broadcasting. Usually I don't have much to say about the Olympics other than "it bores me" and "why don't gymnasts have necks?" But this year I am in China and no one from my students at English corner to the Western media seems to be able to shut up about it. So after 7+ months of avoidance, I have finally decided to sit down and figure out my own opinion.

Every weekday I preserve my sanity and fluency with written English by reading articles and headlines from various periodicals and blogs. Over the past year or so, China bashing has become pretty popular in the American and British media. From an idiotic piece on salon.com, essentially alleging that the Chinese will eat your collie if it barks at a portrait of Mao too loudly, to reuglar articles in the New York Times describing how the Chinese are destroying their environment by daring to build up their economy through manufacturing and burning coal in the process (if this sounds vaguely familiar, find a 10th grade history book and look up the Industrial Revolution).

The question taking up those column inches lately is: by participating in the Olympics in any way are we tacitly accepting every action of the Chinese government? Re-reading my rather diplomatically phrased sentence, it seems as though the very position it questions is a bit extreme. Beijing certainly has its panties in a twist over the protests during the Olympic torch relay and the recent events in Tibet. The Chinese English-language pundits and commentators are happy to blame the "Dalai-clique" for these deeds. They remain blithely unaware that the word "clique" they insist on using reminds me of bathroom-wall libel and the crucial politics of a high school cafeteria. Steven Spielberg disappointed his Chinese fans when he stepped down from his advisory role in the Olympics over China's dealings with the Sudan. I have read plenty of ill-informed Western journalism in the past few months, and witnessed first-hand the effects of censorship. So it boils down to this for me, do any of us really know what we are talking about? Even when my usual ambivalence turns into disdain as I see the speed-walking event instead of a favorite sitcom, I can still see the good of the Olympics. It is nice to see a country win at something that is not a war for a change.

For those of you who remain unconvinced that Western democracies should not use the Olympics as a the means by which to twist the arm of the Beijing government, consider this. I teach adult students at a training school two nights a week for some extra cash. During our break Friday evening, one of my students came up to me and told me in a burst of excitement and trepidation that his company would be sending him to Africa next month. "Where?" I asked. "Sudan," he replied. After I picked my jaw up off of the floor I told him he needed to educate himself before he leaves. He seemed only aware that it would be 50 degrees celsius there this time of year. We chatted for a bit and I directed him towards a few information outlets. C. is easily the best student in the class, so I felt comfortable directing him to English-language sources. The reason I take a slight risk in writing this here is because C. does not work for the Chinese government, nor even a Chinese company. He works for a French-owned top 100 conglomerate, that probably has its finger in a pie you're eating.

Yangzhou's greenish thumb

2008-04-13T17:55:00.005+08:00

I noted previously that that there were some nice flowers around Slender West Lake. My visit there conveniently came a year after they restored a Song dynasty (960-1279) garden. While some areas, exhibited a strong planting prowess... others did not.

It is an all-flower garden, just not an all-real flower garden.

Yangzhou

2008-04-13T16:06:00.003+08:00

Yesterday I popped over to Yangzhou City in the next province to check out Shou Xi Hu (Slender West Lake), sort of the mini version of the more famous West Lake in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province. Maybe it was the vestiges of the stereotype of Asian tranquility still hanging out in my brain, but I was looking forward to spending some time in a scenic lake area that was... peaceful. With the April flowers out in full show, however, the place was jammed with tourists.

Shou Xi Hu does have some lovely flowers and pagodas, although they are interspersed with the more unusual sights of poorly concealed speakers squealing out classical Chinese music, and a flock of doves ready for photo opportunities. Like the mock saloon photo studios where people can get a sepia portait dressed like cowboys and barmaids in places like Wall, SD, Shou Xi Hu has costumes available where friends can play dress up in a hodge podge of costumes from Imperial China and have a photo taken.

After paying the staggering 90 rmb entrance fee ($13 give or take) I wasn't feeling too charitable towards the crowds jostling for the same damn photo you can get at virtually every scenic spot in China. After being shoved around for a few hours, I became a little less irritated and a little more thoughtful. Shou Xi Hu is a park full of those things that people look for when they talk about "traditional Chinese culture": puppet shows, pagodas, dragon-themed boats... Although, unlike some outsiders, the Chinese know that their people aren't running around pulling rickshaws in matching pajamas, maybe they are coming to places like this for that elusive entity—tangible culture, too.

Eventually I did find a quiet pavilion where I could write in my journal... next to the toilets.

Check the Weather Report

2008-04-09T10:48:00.002+08:00

Over the past week, our city has had an army of laborers and one earthmover out by our school engaging in some sort of beautification project. Yesterday, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces has some severe thunderstorms and half of that future harmonious garden found itself submerged. I should note that most of the water is actually from a canal that surrounds the school. They call it a river, I call it a moat.

Lost in Transliteration

2008-04-06T09:48:00.003+08:00

Because of my curiosity, and after having confirmed through the students at English Corner that it is in fact, quite cheap, I bought some of the ancestor money that has been for sale on the streets lately. April 5 is Qing Ming (Tomb Sweeping Day), the only traditional Chinese festival calculated from the solar calendar. It is for people to pay respects to their ancestors and departed family members. Not surprisingly, they go to maintain their family tombs and burn this ancestor money so that great grandmother and Uncle Fa can have some cash in the afterlife. For 1 kuai (about 14 cents) I bought three stacks of cheap paper designed to look something like the 100 rmb note. Maybe I went to the cart for relatives who give gum as a birthday present, or maybe the ancestor money factory needs a better copy editor. But for whatever reason, when I got home, I realized I had bought a few thousand kuai worth of Hell Bank Notes.

New Photos from Old Trips, Huang Shan

2008-04-03T12:14:00.007+08:00

Sucking air less than a third of the way up Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain) I saw this and thought, "Yep, I am in China."

There is no shortage of Chinglish signs at Huang Shan.

The Bei Hai (North Sea) sunrise at Huang Shan. I had to hike 3 km before 5 am just to snap this picture, so did hundreds of Chinese tourists.

New Photos from Old Trips, Guangxi

2008-04-03T12:04:00.004+08:00

A trip down the Li Jiang (Li River) in the Guangxi Autonomous Region is as obligatory as a cruise down the Seine for tourists. Our boat was bigger than this, though.
I've heard the landscape of Guangxi compared to the illustrations of Dr. Seuss. He had a more diverse palette, but you get the idea.

The skies were overcast and the water is low in winter, but the important parts, the hills, are always the same.

Our tour guide led us to believe that Hu Jintao himself was responsible for there being enough water in the river for a cruise that day.

New Photos from Old Trips, Shilin

2008-04-03T11:47:00.007+08:00

Shilin (Stone Forest) is a well known attraction near the Yunnan capital of Kunming. Not a bad place to spend a day running around climbing on rocks like a little kid.

Karst formations are found all over China, Shilin is just one of the places that has a plethora of these rather phallic looking (I said it!) rocks.

I think the water was dyed.

America is far too litigious to allow a tourist to run around rock formations 60 feet off of the ground (but China isn't).

A giant fossil of a dodo bird. Or just some weathered stone than looks like one.

New Photos from Old Trips, Yuan Yang

2008-04-03T11:32:00.008+08:00

Many parts of China look like an industrial wasteland. In the past few months, however, I have been able to visit some of the top scenic destinations here. From the photographer's haven of Yuan Yang county in Yunnan Province to the sci-fi landscape of the Li jiang (Li river) in Guangxi Autonomous Region and back up the Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain) in my very own province of Anhui, here are some new photos from old trips.

The Sunlight Guesthouse in the village of Duoyishu (Yuan Yang) is run by a woman who like the be called "Ayi" (Auntie) and her husband (pictured). He gently plods around making food in one of the most beautiful places on earth.The Hani and Yi people of Ailao Mountain have been farming on these terraces for 2,000+ years.

Yuan Yang is the Mecca of Chinese amateur photographers.The best time to visit is in winter, when the terraces are flooded with water.

The Lengthy Flashback episode, final scene

2008-04-02T20:24:00.001+08:00

Yellow (?) Mountain (March 24, 2007)

This past weekend, I sought to rectify two situations. The first was the rather embarrassing fact that I had never traveled anywhere alone before. The second was that I had been living in the same province where one of China's most famous famous attractions is located for seven months, and I had never been there. So by Monday of last week I decided to make my way down the southern part of Anhui province to see Yellow Mountain (Huang Shan). I asked Mr. Chen, my cheerful, if somewhat unreliable coordinator at No. 2 Middle School where I work, for a train schedule to the closest city to Huang Shan, Tunxi. Instead, he took me to the local branch of China's state travel agency, CITS, and with his translations I bought a round trip bus ticket and hotels for two nights.

If, from the attached photos, the scenery at Huang Shan feels familiar, it is because it has inspired half of China's renowned poets and artists. It was also the background for the end of a little Chinese movie called Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Billboards with scenes from the movie are still up there, although the weather hasn't been kind to them. There are three ways to make one's ascent to the top of Huang Shan where all of the obligatory sights are. Two involve endless, punishing steps, the other is a cable car. Mock me all you want, but I fully intended to take the cable car and spend all the time I wanted prancing from rock formation to scenic vista and maybe relaxing for a bit at a backpacker bar (fingers crossed!). Thanks to the good people at CITS, my dreams were dashed to the (limestone) rocks. It turned out that I was a member of some sort of tour group. We had buttons! And a guide! The former wasn't so bad, since some of the other groups had to wear hats and I am just too cool for that. The latter was sort of an issue because this particular guide was none too pleased to have a foreigner in her group to keep track of.

The bus dropped us off at the base of the eastern steps (which, thankfully, are easier than the western steps). Not only had I woken up that morning with every intention of availing myself of modern conveniences to reach the top of that mountain, but I had also packed my overnight bag like a woman who does not exert herself. “This sucks” was the phrase I taught two university students in my group that morning.

The Bei Hai (North Sea) sunrise is one of the big sights of Huang Shan. I hadn't seen a sunrise since college and didn't even remember the last time I saw a sunrise because I had woken up for it. To my dismay, getting up at 4 am for a 3 km hike to Bright Summit to view this sunrise was not optional. I guess it was pretty nice, although, like I said, I don't have many sunrises to compare it to. What was really an event, however, was the collective gasp of (literally) hundreds of Chinese tourists when the first pastel hues appeared on the horizon.

Yep, there were lots of people there. If I learned, anything at all, it was that a person (especially in China) never really travels alone. There are always people to meet, the shallow bonds of being mutually out of your element to be forged, and university students to overcome their shyness and try out their English with you. After seven months, I am still not overmuch bothered by being the only non-Chinese around. The English-language signs in Huang Shan were probably written by the first person in China to have a Chinese-English dictionary, so it would have been nice on occasion to not be the only person giggling at a trail map.

For all the soreness in my calves seeing Huang Shan was worth it.

I took the cable car down.

*I never did find out why it is called Yellow mountain.

The Lengthy Flashback episode, 8

2008-04-02T12:24:00.000+08:00

Part 4

I met a guy once who had spent a year in Japan teaching English. He claimed that is was good for him to live somewhere where he was the minority (he was white). He seemed to think that this experience made him a better (less racist) person. He was more explicit than most, but a perceived benefit of spending a significant amount of time in a foreign country (especially if that country is very different from home, i.e., not Canada) is a greater tolerance and appreciation for difference.

Errr. I am still waiting.

One of the hardest parts about living in China is managing our inner racists, that little superiority complex that lives inside all of us who flips her lid every time “they” do something she wouldn't have. Nothing brings out the inner bigot more than the bus in China, from the municipal buses that cannot come to a complete stop and the sleeper buses that are the nexus of all that is wrong with society. The bus from Kunming to Yuan Yang took about 7 ½ hours. The return trip, we were told, takes 12 hours and goes overnight. Taking the overnights is a great way to save money when traveling but i was honestly curious as to how the Chinese bus drivers manage to alter the laws of physics so that driving the exact same roads in the opposite direction takes 50 % longer. This is also the downhill part. So to leave paradise and go back to the China of neon signs and a KTV joint every block, we had to get on a sleeper bus with every infant and chain smoker in Yunnan.
The Chinese don't know it, but they really make my teeth clench with their inefficient approach to travel. So how did the bus drag out the trip from Yuan Yang to Kunming? By making stops. A lot of them. We stopped so people could get off and then get back on again for reasons that never became apparent to me. We stopped for dinner because adults are incapable of packing food and Chinese people will go to great lengths to get a hot meal. The first five or so of these superfluous stops did not include a bathroom so I arrived in Kunming rather dehydrated. In the middle of the night the staff of the bus put down their bedrolls in the aisle and went to sleep. The immediately caused me to envision several worst-case scenarios, most of which involved our bus careening off of a cliff and my body being impaled on a tree like a kebab. For the sake of diplomacy, I hope no Chinese person on the bus that night understood a word of English. I woke up in the middle of the night again to the sounds of people getting on and off of the bus, presumably to brush their teeth and waste more time before we got to Kunming.
The next morning, I was pleased to wake up on earth instead of making excuses at the pearly gates. But where were we? The bus was empty. And parked. At a bus station. In Kunming. It was 9 AM, the staff of the bus were sitting at the front, smoking around a charcoal fire in a metal tub. We had been sleeping in a bus at our destination for five hours. In my sleepy irritation, I hadn't even bothered to consider whether our fellow passengers were actually wasting time or just disembarking at our final destination. We sheepishly confirmed that we were in fact, in Kunming, and stepped off into the day that had already started.
If only my inner bigot would just quiet down sometimes.

Conclusions

The Chinese word word for China is often translated into English as "the Middle Kingdom." This is a slightly erroneous romanticizing of the characters. The "guo" in "Zhong Guo" means country or nation (zhong=middle). In my dictionary, the word "kingdom" doesn't even show up in the half page of terms that include the character "guo." There are several other countries whose Chinese names end in "guo": "Mei guo" (United States) and "Ying guo" (England) for example. Maybe England can be the kingdom of the ying (pound) since they still cling to their monarchy, if only to keep thousands employed in the tabloid business, but America has been pretty anti-kingdom for a while now. "Mei guo" means "beautiful country." I am still not sure how I feel about that

.

It is a mystery to me why my country's name got pruned to two syllables while Australia gets to be "Aodaliya" in Chinese and Italy is "Idali" (big changes). I'll probably never know the explanation. Even if I do learn it, the answer will probably disappoint me. I submit anyway, that the Chinese name for China is better translated into English as "Middle Country." After spending 3 1/2 weeks traveling around China, especially the mountains of the south, I am tempted to say that China is really the "Beautiful Country." The real conclusion I arrived at after hoping from scenic destination to scenic destination, however, was that it was time to get serious about studying Chinese.

So at the age of 22, when all of my language acquisition abilities have been replaced with facts gleaned from Pop-Up Video and Buffy the Vampire Slayer arcana, I have decided to start learning me some Chinese. I couldn't have picked a language more different from English if I had gone to Papua New Guinea. I have no desire to become fluent. I really just want to be able to get around by myself next time I go traveling and maybe start answering some of those questions the talkative cab drivers ask. If my ambitions were a game of limbo, the bar would be set so low not even a midget gymnast would be able to shimmy under there. I'm currently fluent in ordering beer, asking for the largest clothing size, and giving the address of my yoga studio (so I can avoid having to use the first two phrases). With a few months of serious study, hopefully I can reach the linguistic heights of chatting with my hairdresser and reading fashion magazines. Wish me luck.

The Lengthy Flashback episode, 7

2008-04-02T12:11:00.001+08:00

Part 3

Ailao mountain in southern Yunnan Province near the border of Vietnam is covered in the terraced rice paddies that make it into an iconic image of China. It is really just a way to farm an unlikely terrain... and one of the most beautiful places I have seen in my entire life. The trip to the rice terraces did not start out with silent awe. I first had to take a mildly harrowing bus ride during which even the locals vomited, endure an increasingly disturbing series of toilets, drag my duffel bag places the Coach Leatherware Company never intended it to go, and spend a very cold and damp night in a village that had been stuck in a cloud for weeks...

When I first decided to teach English in China I briefly flirted with the idea of going to a small rural village where the old people had more fingers than teeth and the livestock ran freely on the unpaved streets. Like most flirtations, thank God I didn't take it seriously. Yuan Yang is a county in southern Yunnan that is close to the border of Vietnam. Even some of my students have never heard of it, despite its popularity with Chinese tourists. It is know for the rice terraces that have been carved into the mountain there for over 2,000 years. In winter, they are flooded with water and it looks like a staircase of mirrors coming in and out of the clouds. It is one of the few places in the world where humans seem to have improved upon nature.

The Chinese tourists come by the bus load to take pictures of the terraces in winter. They dress like they are preparing for an Arctic trek and have photographic equipment that would probably make the folks at National Geographic jealous. I am somehow offended by the bourgeoisie pioneer attitude of the Chinese tourists, but all that really separates their presence in Yuan Yang from mine is my lack of waterproof clothing and a tripod.
The other sight to see in Yuan Yang are the “ethnic minorities.” The (Han) Chinese talk about the non-Han (who make up about seven percent of the population) like an older American trying to fit in with the politically correct culture an failing miserably. Most of the women and girls of the who live on Ailao mountain in Yuan Yang dress in their traditional costumes. The men tend to favor that odd Chinese adaptation of business casual‑sports jacket over trousers with a t-shirt underneath. In an laughable contrast to the Han Chinese disembarking their tour buses in Gore-tex pants and hiking boots, the local men are walk up and down the unpaved mountain roads in hard-soled loafers. It is almost as popular to take pictures of the Hani and Yi females in their embroidered shirts and silver headdresses as it is to take pictures of the rice terraces. Some women and their daughters sell hard-boiled eggs to tourists at the scenic spots, which is hardly surprising considering every last person seems to be going up and down the mountain holding a chicken by its feet. I hope that altitude somehow lowers cholesterol levels because those kids probably have to eat the eggs they don't sell.

Only one village on Ailao mountain, Qingkou, charges an entrance fee. I gladly paid my 30 rmb fee ( about $4, peak season rate) to those people clever enough to charge it. They have their ticket booth and the bottom of a fairly steep mountain road, so even the cheapskates will feel obligated to pay it, rather than turn around and hike back up again. More interesting than the thatch-roofed village for me was people-watching up the hill while waiting for the bus to take us back up the mountain. We are waiting across from the public W.C. Unlike the rest of China, there are few English signs in Yuan Yang, except for the toilet. Maybe they were prioritizing. I watched a little girl, not more than four, in full Hani costume. She took over charging for use of the toilet from an adult, presumably her mother. A Chinese man asked to take his picture with her and she gleefully obliged. She let him crouch down and wrap his arms around her as his wife took a picture with her camera phone. After the man stood up and stepped away, the little Hani girl toddled over to the woman and looked up through the silver pieces dangling from her forehead. She raised one index finger and said “Yi Kuai*” loudly and boldly enough for me to hear across the street. The woman paid her fee.

Everybody wants to be the better tourist. From not being the chump who takes an unmetered taxi ride to being able to speak the local dialect. I'll never be able to speak Hani, or Tibetan, or Beijingese, or the language of any place I travel in China since I have barely been able to master a few phrases in Putonghua (Mandarin). So instead of trying to be the only Western person within a 50 kilometer radius or blowing my nose without a tissue, I have to satisfy myself with sneaking the freebie pictures from the other side of the street.

*1 rmb (about 14 cents)

The Lengthy Flashback Episode, 6

2008-04-02T11:42:00.000+08:00

In the Middle Country, Complete (February 21, 2008 to March 5, 2008)

Part 1

Until embarrassingly late in life I was under the impression that Chinese New Year meant that the whole in China was in some sort of limbo between January 1, when the rest of the world changed its calendars and some roaming date later in winter when their New Year happened. It has been 2008 here for just as long as it has been for everybody else, the Chinese New Year is the lunar New Year and has more to do with a new year of the... than the date. They call it Spring Festival and although I had figured out the difference between the solar and lunar calendar long before I moved here, I still had to wonder why they call it “Spring” Festival when the holiday invariably falls at some point in dead winter. The inadequate answer that I can relate here is that the name refers to a new beginning, not flowers blossoming. China has to wait for March 20/21 like everybody else to call the season springtime.

Urban China is typically a churning mass of conflicting currents, with people sometimes so closely packed together that you could lift your feet off of the ground and stay upright. The eve of Spring Festival, I was in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province and appropriately for that time of year, known as the “Spring City.” I won't remember the feeling and traditions of Spring Festival spent with a family, because I chose to travel on my 3 ½ weeks off instead. What I will remember is the transition of a city in China from a surging river into a placid lake. Everybody in China returns to their hometowns for Spring Festival if they are able. The remaining families of Kunming were in their homes, with red posters on the door to protect them from an evil spirit known, and eating dumplings for good fortune because they resemble the old style of Chinese money. So I missed out on all that protection and good fortune. The former I sort of felt like I needed listening to the symphony of Fallujah that sounded outside of my hostel room at around midnight as the city exploded in fireworks and firecrackers. That night in Kunming was really just the middle point of my travels, literally and metaphorically between the reassuring subways and shopping streets of Shanghai and the emblematic landscapes of southern China. But to do all that, I first had to leave Ma'anshan at the end of January. You might have heard that eastern China got a bit of snow before the New Year...

Part 2

One of my fellow foreign teachers here in China told me a story about one of his early students, who despite being eleven, was very good at English and unafraid to be frank with grown-ups. She told him that in Chinese “zhu” means “pig” (ironically pronounced more like “jew”) and “lai” means “to come” (pronounced “lie”). So whenever Chinese people hear the English word for the month of “July” they think: “A pig is coming.” Considering the ubiquity of pork in Chinese cuisine, it might actually be something to be mildly excited about. Pigs may come in July but the Year of the Pig ended not with barbecues and pool parties but with the worst snowstorm China has seen in decades.
With a population of 1.3 billion, you would think that everyone could just grab a shovel and have the place cleared out by noon. Unfortunately, this all happened the week before Spring Festival when everyone in China who is even remotely able returns to his or her hometown. This is the largest human migration on the planet. I have no idea how to write an appropriate comparison for this.
It had been snowing for two days when we decided to leave Ma'anshan to spend a few days in Shanghai. With a foot of snow on the ground that Monday, it looked like I was going to be about as successful as a writer-less talk show (I mean YOU Jon Stewart). Under the best circumstances, the journey from Ma'anshan to Shanghai should take no more than four hours, even that estimate can be shaved down in various ways. I left my apartment at about 7:30 AM and arrived at the Shanghai railway station at 4 PM. Between waiting for the municipal buses that never came, stepping over sleeping bodies in the train stations and pushing my own taxi out of the snow, and being rescued from the never-ending ticket line by an engineering student from Chongqing, I wondered who was more desperate: the family-centric Chinese trying to get home for the most important holiday of the year, or me, determined not to be buried alive in a small, industrial city in eastern China when I still hadn't seen a fraction of what I came here for.
Counter intuitively, I was more relaxed in the 18 million strong city of Shanghai than I was for most of the other 3 weeks I spent on the road. I learned many things: eat brunch, save money (two meals become one); French people bring small children to youth hostels (perhaps thinking that “youth” is the average age) and are mildly surprised to learn that some Americans understand the remarks they mutter under their breath about United States politics; if you can't find a place, look on the other side of the map. After a week of not being a teacher anymore, I was ready to start the slightly more adventurous part of my vacation and fly to Kunming from the Shanghai airport just days before the New Year. Flying to Kunming was supposed to help me avoid the pandemonium of the train stations with all the convenience that my relatively generous salary can afford.

Umm. No.

Going to the Shanghai airport after half of the country has been covered in enough snow to weaken or destroy every possible infrastructure is like walking into a crowded bar just as the two drunkest patrons are about to get into a fight. Someone is either about to get punched or turn out all the lights. The good news is that our plane reached cruising altitude without us crashing into another aircraft or having the pilot as if any of the passengers have flight experience. The bad news was that in the next few weeks I would rediscover my claustrophobia on a sleeper bus underneath a Pokemon blanket, eat some bad (yet so delicious) fried chicken on a stick, and spend more time pushing an electric scooter than riding it. Interspersed with all that I did happen to see some of the most beautiful sights in all of southern China. Beauty, however, is not nearly as entertaining as tribulation, tragedy and the hilarity of our own defeat.

The Lengthy Flashback Episode, 5

2008-04-02T11:34:00.000+08:00

Sheng Dan Kuai Le! (December 27, 2007)

Most of you reading these emails (or “letters” as my grandma calls them) are older and more well-traveled than I am. Some of you have lived in China, and a few of you still do. “Culture shock” is one of those topics that everyone seems to talk about without really saying anything. I am only choosing to talk about this grayest of subjects when I should be be talking about the red and green one because this week we had no water at school (where my apartment is) for 18 hours straight.

Let me tell you that culture shock is not a drawer full of chopsticks when all you want is a fork. Culture shock is bursting on the inside because you feel like the only person who has a problem with the present situation. It is not about wishing you were home in the land of rationality; it is about the crippling self-doubt that comes from thinking that maybe you weren't as open-minded as you thought you were when you stepped off that plane. On Thursday, when I thought about 2000 students not being able to wash their hands at school, I just wanted to be back where a blocked fire exit is grounds for dismissal. The fact that I stand up in front of 75 students everyday who know no other American woman but me kept me from making my inner monologue my outer monologue. If I hadn't restrained myself, I'm sure that it would have gone something like this: “You can put all the computers you want in the classroom, but it is indoor plumbing that distinguishes modernity from everything else! Now please, don't touch me.”

It is a lot of pressure to represent a country, a language, a political system, a “culture,” women who can have as many children as they want, a perspective to a bunch of teenagers who hang on every word that they can understand. I'm terrified of saying the wrong thing. I know that I have already screwed up. My 15 year olds say “Oh shit” when something goes wrong with the computer that we can't fix. Maybe they learned that from a movie, or maybe they learned it from their teacher who must have been a sailor in a past life. I corrected my students on the marital status of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but I let slide the belief that all Americans are white and celebrate Christmas. Half of my students think that my country is responsible for all of the world's problems, and the other half just wants to go shopping with me. They let me down when they stare at me blankly when I ask them a question that isn't written down somewhere. I'm the disappointment who knows only slightly more grammar than our distinguished president.

Fraud is punishable by death in China, and sometimes I feel like a fraud. But just when I start thinking 45 minutes of “Jingle Bell Rock” is totally a way to punt a lesson plan, I'm in for a different kind of culture shock. I walk to my last class at 4:40 PM on Wednesday and to what do my wondering eyes should appear, but my classroom decorated with tinsel, wreaths and a tree. I think my heart grew three sizes that day. Now I'm done with the holiday references that no one around here would pick up on. I'll leave you with some Chinese Christmas party pictures. You might see the little boy with the glasses again when I unpack him out of my suitcase in July.

The Lengthy Flashback Episode, 4

2008-04-02T11:32:00.000+08:00

Your face is killing me (December 12, 2007)

Brace yourselves for some typo's. I am writing this email from my office at school wearing a pair of gloves AND a pair of palm warmers underneath (think fingerless gloves, but even more fingerless).

The Chinese have a concept called "face" that translates into people going to great lengths to not embarrass themselves or others, and to make themselves look good. Emphasis on the "look." How does this affect my life, you may ask? In addition to not finding out about any problems until they've been swept under the Tibetan rug, it means that I work in a meat locker of a school because my school installed a central heating system (to make themselves look rich and modern) that they are too cheap to use!

Upon arriving in Ma'anshan Number 2 Middle School, young, naive Mary remarked to herself that local winters could not be that bad because (A). None of the buildings of the school seemed particularly constructed to keep warm air in and cold air out and (B). well, with single layer windows, tile construction, and open-air hallways, what more evidence do you need than (A)? How wrong I was. I would weep bitter tears of disappointment now, but I am afraid that they will freeze to my face
.
The Chinese approach to winter is a little different than ours. When I was the age my students are now (which wasn't that long ago, a fact that my students are unfotunately aware of) I wore a t-shirt underneath my winter coat to school, because clearly, this is the way to look good at all times. Although I may have looked ridiculous wearing a t-shirt in a New England winter, it worked because us lavish Americans heat our buildings. Not so over here. The key is to wear as many layers as possible and to not remove any of them at any point you are not in bed or the shower. At the moment, I am dressed as the Michelin Man of EFL. If someone could send a space blanket to me,

I'd be much obliged.

I got plenty of warnings before I moved here: You'll have to use the squat toilet! They speak Chinese! The food is revolting! You'll get the Black Plague! Don't drink the water! Chinese people don't know how to stand in line! I would have gotten on just fine without these little nuggets, but why oh why did no one say: "You'll freeze your ass off!" That really would have tipped the scales in Tawain's favor.

Oh, and happy holidays everybody. Go a few months without seeing your friends and family, stick your feet in an ice bucket, and then you will have an idea of how much I miss everyone.

The Lengthy Flashback Episode, 3

2008-04-02T11:28:00.000+08:00

“Xiexiegiving” (November 27, 2007)

“Xie xie" is Chinese for "thanks"

As a little American Pilgrim in a new country (without the intent to set up a religious colony) I decided upon arriving in China that I was going to host a Thanksgiving meal replete with mashed potatoes and stuffing for the other Americans and and interested Chinese. My original idea for a small dinner party catered by my Martha Stewart-with-a-microwave capabilities went through several permutations before it became "Xiexiegiving." Xiexiegiving was nothing like Thanksgiving with the family, it sponsored by a local business man, held at a restaurant, with a 70-person invite list.

Although names like "Chinese Whispers" (what speakers of that other English call the game of "Telephone') and "Chinese splits" (the straddle split for all us former dancers and gymnasts) smack of Orientalism, I believe that the Chinese Finger Trap is a pretty apt name for a toy that makes it harder to beat the more you struggle. Not fighting the grip of Chinese culture is how my friend Bradi (my co-host) and I wound up with a corporate sponsor and a Thanksgiving party that had no turkey, but did manage to include a game of musical chairs.

Back in October our friend Christopher offered us use of his restaurant that has been closed for a while. He also offered to take us shopping for the food. While we were busy feeling guilty about Christopher's generosity, he was planning a company party for November 22 to promote his other businesses and feature his American pals as the main attraction. We got wise to this situation about two days before Thanksgiving when he started talking about gift bags and having a fashion show. I know that not everyone who reads my emails is American, but those of us who are know that the first Thanksgiving did not include karaoke or a big plate of chicken feet, and the only swag bags we have are filled with leftovers.

The American food we cooked turned out to be awful. It is hard to cook our dishes with the local ingredients. As a person who is used to making stuffing from the blue and white Pepperidge Farm bag, I was doomed from the start. Luckily Christopher had his staff cooking all day so we had plenty of good (albeit not traditional Thanksgiving) food. We were against most of Christopher's ideas from the start, speeches, games, the afore mentioned fashion show. Chinese people, however, won't come out just for the free food and drinks, like us Americans. They are a little more choosy and must be wooed with the promise of prizes and the chance to embarrass themselves with a microphone. I will concede, however, that musical chairs was a hit.

Fortunately, Xiexiegiving was a success. Unfortunately, this means I have to start planning a Christmas party. Karaoke Christmas Carols sounds like purgatory to me.

The Lengthy Flashback Episode, 2

2008-04-02T11:24:00.000+08:00

Chinese Superstar (October 10, 2007)

There has been an extra week between emails this time for the Chinese National Holiday. Theoretically, we are supposed to have the entire first week in October off. By my advanced calculations, factoring the Sunday classes the students had as well as the school's 50th anniversary celebration, my students got a total of one day of vacation in addition to the usual one day off per week. You are reading that correctly, instead of having an extra 5 days without school for their nationally mandated vacation, they got one. I was going to stage an insurrection against these sadistic school administrators (I'll show you a Cultural Revolution!), but I didn't have to come in on Sunday myself so my indignation lessened.

I had to cut my vacation to Suzhou short to come back for the anniversary celebration. Two weeks beforehand, Mr. Chen, our cheerfull, if slightly unreliable, school coordinator informed us that the "foreigners" had to give a performance for the entire school. Perhaps I've already mentioned that China likes to keep the foreigners together. Sometimes this becomes boderline ridiculous, like asking two teachers and two students who manage to be from four different continents, to sing and dance together in front of the entire school.

Some people like to portray the "East" and "West" as having diametrically opposed cultural characteristics. This practice grossly oversimplifies things, but sometimes the old "East-West" distinction is dead-on. For example, in China it is no imposition at all to ask a teacher to get on stage before thousands of people and sing her little heart out. In the West, we expect people who perform to have talent before we give them the microphone, in China, talent is optional. All you need is pulse and you can have the spotlight. Like most parts of my life in China, I found this experience to be both hilarious and excruciating.

Sometime later, one of the Chinese-English teachers and I were talking together and she mentioned that her students thought that the "young lady foreign teacher" had such a beautiful voice. I stand corrected, everything is backwards in China.

The Lengthy Flashback Episode, 1

2008-04-02T11:03:00.000+08:00

Fashion Lady!* (September 26, 2007)

It is still ferociously hot here. In this part of the country, close
to one of the three furnaces of China, Nanjing (not named for their
pottery making history) the air doesn't seem to move much. The
overcast skies almost never bring the relief of rain. The Chinese way
of coping with the rare sun on days like today, is to carry a parasol.
A parasol is a sun umbrella in case you haven't been the the
nineteenth century recently. Like gunpowder, moveable type, and the
compass, the Chinese invented the umbrella. As with the abacus, they
see no need to innovate further. I read somewhere that the abacus can
do some calculations faster than a calculator, but believe none of
what you hear and only half of what you read.

Here's a riddle, what do Chinese women and Western Dads have in
common? Socks with sandals! They wear those little sheer trouser socks
with all of their shoes. Peep-toe pumps, teva-like sandals
(schoolgirls only), dress sandals all require nude colored sheer
socks. Unless they lady in question is truly fashion-forward, then she
can forgo the socks but must be prepared to deal with the consequences
of wearing heels all day every day... and biking to work in them. I
usually wear ballet-flats to work. This is approximately the Chinese
equivalent of wearing footie pajamas to school.

China is also the country of hair accessories. I think the general
rule is: if you don't have rhinestones somewhere on your head, go
home. Despite the abundance of hairclips, ponytail holders,
embellished bobby pins and the like, I still haven't been able to find
those hair elastics that don't have the metal band on them.

It is impossible to pack before coming to China. On the one hand they
have almost everything you need. Unfortunately you won't find out what
those few things are that you actually need to import until you get
here. I shouldn't have wasted so much room in my suitcase on socks
(see above) but deodorant is a rarity. It's not like we don't need it
(see first line). The old hands always say to travel light. If anyone
knows how to do this, please tell me how. On second thought, travel
advice usually ranges from the obvious to the utterly ridiculous.
Actual packing recommendations for people moving to China: "Bring your
favorite brand of medication as you probably won't find it there"
(Advil or Aleve, must I choose a favorite?) "For women: If you wear a
bra size larger than AA, bring a year's supply" (now we know why we
should have saved some room with fewer socks).

I hope everyone can read these emails while at work and not at home.
Spend your free time with friends and family. You never know when you
will be the stuck in Asia as the local unfashionable oddity without
them.

*Fashion Lady is the English name for an underground shopping mall in Nanjing, for ladies only, natch.

Photos: Apparently my singing is somewhat dull, but I can console myself with a $4.50 manicure of koi fish

The Flashback Episode

2008-04-02T10:55:00.000+08:00

In the grand tradition of lazy sitcom writers, I am posting a bunch of emails that I have sent over the past 7 months. Culled from my outbox based on the the complex methodology of which emails got the most replies, and which I personally liked best. Besides adding some background for Sinofiled, they provide context for the extra pictures I am posting. So instead of taking up precious storage in the inboxes of my friends and family, Sergei Brin will be hosting them on his personal laptop. Ha. Well the point is, picture storage is some Google drone's problem now.

Judgment Day

2008-04-01T09:00:00.000+08:00

This past Sunday, I was roped into judging a local English competition. I knew that things were not going to go well when I noticed that the judge's scorecard had a column labeled “grammer.” That morning at 7 am, when we met in our office, Mr. Chen asked me whether I preferred to judge older children or younger children. I offered to judge the older children, and found out that I had the wrong preference. According to Mr. Chen, the younger children would be better able to understand my accent over my colleague's South African one when we asked the questions.

Nobody felt the need to tell me in advance that I would be the one to ask each child two questions. They certainly did not feel the need to consult me about the predetermined set of questions. After three children, it became obvious that most of the questions were much too difficult for the kids. The q&a came after a baffling talent portion, during which the children sang and danced and occasionally accompanied themselves on a musical instrument.

I tried to improve on the questions provided. When the students said in their speeches “I want to visit Washington and meet the President who is my idol,” I asked, “Who is the President of the United States?” None of them knew. I felt cruel, and every time I asked a child his or her age, the other judges would not so subtly point to a harder question on the page.

This “judger*” isn't complaining about the kids, even if I did have to hear them sing “Edelweiss” and “Big, Big World” 17 times. Each. If there is anything to complain about, it is the adults who wrote and choreographed speeches for the students. They spent months memorizing the hand motion that goes with the phrase “Rome wasn't built in a day,” leaving no time for learning important skills, like how to answer basic questions about themselves.

How does a foreign teacher know she has insinuated herself into that tightly woven fabric known as Chinese society? By getting a phone call during her lunch break asking her to give the kid of a friend of a friend a higher score.

The next day the competition organizers paid me 300 rmb.

*as labeled on the scorecards